


no grave could hold my body down

by gaygiggling



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a little fluff interspersed here and there, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Manipulative Dream, Mentions of Death, Sorry!, dreamsmp lore, dtao3, i actually don't know that much about the lore but i gathered what i could, no beta we die like men, prison arc dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28895259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaygiggling/pseuds/gaygiggling
Summary: After Dream is imprisoned, he refuses to talk to anyone.Anyone, but George.He’d been dreading this visit for weeks. It was inevitable, of course, that he would come to see Dream in shackles, bound needlessly to a cell that was patrolled all hours of the day. It’d been a long couple of weeks, waking up alone in his house, watching the sun rise from his bed without Dream to admire it with him.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 564
Collections: MCYT





	no grave could hold my body down

**Author's Note:**

> hi! omfg this is my second oneshot i'm sorry waterlily will be updated soon BUT i really loved the season 2 finale of the dream smp and i HAD to write this. some parts may not be completely canon compliant with the dreamsmp lore but i tried my best to remember what i could. it's a lot of angst/no comfort so i'm sorry! please read the tags and make sure you're comfortable with everything before reading. have some water and enjoy <3

It’s so cold in the prison.

George notices that first, before everything else. He’s ushered in briskly by Sam, whose sorry smile never seems to fade. “This way,” he says softly, as if he has to hold George gently in his palm and cradle him like a cooing toddler. George both hates and appreciates it.

He’d been dreading this visit for weeks. It was inevitable, of course, that he would come to see Dream in shackles, bound needlessly to a cell that was patrolled all hours of the day. It’d been a long couple of weeks, waking up alone in his house, watching the sun rise from his bed without Dream to admire it with him.

He doesn’t dare admit he missed him, but he does.

Sam leads him through blackstone hallways, the sharp clacks of his armour breaking the eerie silence that accompanies them. George follows after him silently, grasping for composure, rehearsing what he’s going to say. He tries to ignore the steady ache in his chest, heart-wrenching and disgusting and putrid.

He stands a little taller, back a little straighter. If no one could tell he was shaking, that will be good enough for him.

“He’s through here.”

Sam’s voice wavers slightly, and George almost feels bad for him. He knows Sam put his everything into making the prison, knowing its inner workings and intricacies, only to have to put the one person he looked up to in it. But he knows- _everyone_ knows, Dream behind bars was the best thing for the people.

He swallows thickly, nodding. “Can I,” he tries his voice. It cracks. He ignores it. “have some alone time with him?”

Doubt crosses Sam’s face.

“Please- just a while.” George’s voice turns to a plead. “I have something I need to say to him. Privately.”

Sam nods solemnly. “Okay,” he breathes. “If you need me, just yell. I’ll be right around the corridor.”

George offers him a small smile, one that he can barely see returned in the dim lighting of the prison. He hates it here; everything was cold, heavy, dark- nothing like what it was like on the outside. He craves his home now, to take Dream in his arms and carry him home, through meadows of flowers and gentle waves lapping at the shores. A daydream that disappears as he walks further into the hallway, haunted by the ghosts of his memories.

_“This is our home now,” he breathed, looking up at Dream. His eyes, swollen with pride, glittered in the dying sunlight. “Just for us.”_

_The red-roofed home basked in the adoration of the two men, huddled together, hands barely touching. George could feel Dream’s steady breathing, calmed down after a day of hardship in the country. He wished he would just retire, join George indefinitely in planting potatoes and beetroots in the garden behind their home, tending to the rose bushes, anything that didn’t make him come home reeking of exhaustion, wielding his axe._

_“Just for us,” Dream echoed, voice wrapped in love. George’s hand came up, reaching behind the hood of Dream’s stained and dirtied hoodie, unclasping the mask from the back. A crack ran through it, evidence of his work. As it fell away, George watched a lone tear spill over his lashes. His heart reached for him, pulling their lips together in a gentle kiss. They swayed together for just a moment longer, savouring the memory for a rainy day._

_George never knew what he did. He never asked. He was just ready with an armful of hugs and kisses to pepper along the nook where his neck met his shoulder, dinner set on the table. They talked about their days, Dream carefully meandering around parts he didn’t want to corrupt George with. He watched with humming mirth in his eyes as George talked about his days spent with Sapnap, running through the hallways of the castle with Callahan by his side._

_“You’re the best king this world has ever had,” Dream would say every evening, reaching across the table to cover George’s soft hands with his calloused, leathered ones. They would watch as the sky set above them, and the rest of the country took to their slumbers._

Now, of course, it all seems like a bitter memory, a metallic aftertaste in George’s mouth that he wanted to spit out. He was dethroned not long after, and he watched the world fall apart at the hands of the one he once called his beloved.

George comes to a slow stop right before the only cell that was occupied, the only cell gates that were shut and doubled locked. He breathes, trying to calm the racing tides of his heart, but to no avail. He takes one more tentative step, closing his eyes.

In his head, he pictures Dream. _His_ Dream. The Dream who he woke up next to every morning, arm slung around his torso in an attempt to press himself further into his warmth, the Dream who bathed in golden sunset as he crossed every mountain and sea to come home to George every evening. It sates the ravenous sharks in his bloodstream, hungry for tender touches, for even the slightest reminder of his love.

He opens his eyes, and all his memories dissipate.

Dream sits in a corner of the cell, stripped to the bare essentials of a dirtied t-shirt and a worn-out pair of trousers, a sore juxtaposition from his normal armour and pristine leather gloves. His eyes are closed, head leaned back against the wall. For a moment, he looks peaceful enough to be asleep.

“I was wondering when you’d come.”

His voice is hoarse, like he’d shouted his throat raw for millenniums only to fall deaf to the ears of anyone who graced him with their presence. George squints in the dim lighting. There are tight rings around his eyes, swollen and red, his cheekbones pressing harshly against his translucent skin.

In George’s silence, he continues. “I’m sure you didn’t come to just stare at me. Why are you here, George?” He spits his name like venom, fanged and poised to attack. George blinks back the initial nausea that spun his head.

“You really have some nerve, Dream, talking to me like that.” His words are curt and pointed. “You’re locked up, nowhere to go, no pride to speak of, and you’re still as insufferable as ever.”

Dream says nothing.

“They told me to come,” George continues. “Punz and Sapnap. Told me that you wouldn’t talk to anyone, you wouldn’t eat.” His voice twangs with the sharp twist of a dagger in his heart, remembering the way Sapnap had travelled all the way to George’s home in the forest, worry soaking his words. “They asked me to visit you, maybe get you to talk about things.”

“And what things do you wish to talk about, baby?” The pet name is dripping with sarcasm. “You really thought you could come here and patronize me with your presence, and I’ll go blabbering my secrets off to you with no hesitation?” He barks out a laugh, the sound unsettling against the blackstone walls. “No chance, honey. I’m not saying anything.”

“Okay, then.” George swallows thickly. He sits down, leaning against the wall facing the cell. “You don’t have to say a word. I’ll do the talking.” He breathes shakily. “They told me what you did. How you tortured Tommy in exile. How you blew up the community house. They told me to come with them, to unionise against you. To take back the country from what you’ve made it.”

Dream speaks, slowly. “But you weren’t there.”

“I know. I didn’t go. I couldn’t bear to see what they’d do to you.” He pauses, mind reeling, fingers trembling. He hides them in his lap. “I didn’t want to believe what they said was true. And honestly, I didn’t. I didn’t believe it, until Sam took me to the vault.”

He hears Dream’s breath hitch. _Good,_ George thinks. “I saw your blood spilt on the floor. They didn’t even bother clearing it up. It’s like a trophy to them,” he laughs hollowly. “to see you die. Over and over, to see your lives lost.”

“And what did you think?” Dream asks, caution in his voice. George’s hands are beginning to freeze in the cold. He wonders how Dream’s survived weeks in the wintry madness.

“What does it matter what I think?” He whispers. “It’s there. It’s done. You’re not the Dream who started this country with me, are you? Something snapped, somewhere. I lost the Dream I cared about long ago, when you dethroned me.”

“I did it to protect-“

“Shut the fuck up, Dream,” George hissed. “You didn’t do jack shit to protect me. You just wanted all that power. You wanted to prove that you were god above us all, that you had the ability to control us.” He winced at the poison in his words, heart twisting sourly. “I saw the hallway. In the vault.”

Silence. It burns the back of George’s head, ringing in his ears.

“I saw everything you took from them, from Tommy, from Tubbo,” He remembers now, his tentative steps into the hallway, explained solemnly by Sam. Henry, Friend, the jail for Skeppy, all prepared by the hands of his beloved. Chills scatter along his spine. “Your hallway of attachments, wasn’t it? The things that tied them to their humanity, their most loved possessions. You made that hallway to taunt them, to showcase them to everyone, didn’t you? To exert your power over them.”

Dream cuts him off with a snarl. “What’s your point?”

“What was yours?” George shoots back. “Why did you do this to everyone? What more do you want from them, Dream? They already know they’re powerless against you.”

He chuckles. George wants to kill him.

“The one thing I don’t get, Dream, is your attachment.” George starts, slowly. “You had a space for everybody else’s. So where was yours? _What_ was yours?”

Dream doesn’t say anything.

“Was it _Nightmare_? Was it Tommy’s discs? Was it the community house?”

Dream doesn’t say anything.

“Fucking- Tell me!” George yells, his heart wrenching in his voice. “Tell me, Dream, was I your attachment to humanity?”

His reply is soft. “Yes.”

George’s heart threatens to melt. He doesn’t let it.

Dream continues. “I dethroned you to make you hate me. I blew up the house to make you hate me. Because you,” his voice turns gentle. “You were what tied me back to living. For you, George, I would have stopped everything. I would have killed for you, burned down the world for you.”

George clenches his jaw. “Why did you want me to hate you?”

Dream sighs. “Because it was easier than letting you go. I needed to make you hate me so I had nothing left to come home to, nothing left to live for. Without that, I never needed to worry about dying, because I had no more attachment to this world.” He laughs airily. “It became so much easier to gain power when you don’t need to care about the world you’re going to destroy.”

“I thought you did it because you hated me.”

“On the contrary,” Dream smiled weakly. “I did it because I loved you.”

George splutters on his words, mind reeling, unable to form a coherent sentence. “You’re- You’re sick in the head, Dream,” he spits. “You’re cruel, you’re evil, I know all the things you did to them-“

“Oh George,” his voice is smooth like honey, dripping tauntingly. “Just say you hate me.”

“No, no!” George points a shaking finger at his face, scrambling up against the wall to steady himself. “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t use my words against me. I never- _I never hated you._ No matter what you did to me, what you did to others, I could never bring myself to hate you.” His words are tumbling out of his mouth faster than he can comprehend them, slurring over vowels and skipping over consonants. “But you’re not even repentant. You still think this is a game, Dream. You still think this is funny.”

Dream smiles. “Because it is. Isn’t it fun, George, fucking with people’s heads?”

George stares in hapless disbelief at the man who sits in front of him, the shadow of his beloved long gone, buried in the cemetery of their past lives. His voice is reduced to a whisper. “Who are you?”

Dream slithers to the grate, placing a bony hand on the bar. “Who do you want me to be, George?”

_The first day in the world they created, George and Dream frolicked through meadows, pointing out hilly terrains and the intimidating mountains. They collected wood, laughing as they laid the first foundations of what would become the community house. The clouds rolled lazily through the sky as they toiled to build their first home._

_George picked a poppy from the meadow nearby, plucking off its stem. He reached on his tiptoes, brushing Dream’s hair aside, tucking the red flower atop his ear. “There,” his heart bloomed just like the vibrant petals. “Pretty.”_

_Dream laughed heartily. “You really like these flowers, huh?” George smiled, his hand finding Dream’s and intertwining their bare, velvet fingers together. He stood again on his tiptoes, pressing a short, playful kiss on Dream’s soft lips._

_That night, they lay together in bed, huddled close to stay warm. They talked as the moon rose and the stars glittered in the navy sky, glowing white peppering their vision._

_“What is this world?” George asked quietly. Dream’s hand came down to stroke his hair soothingly, love wrapped in tender touches. “Who are we?”_

_Dream breathed. “Who do you want us to be, George?”_

“Sam!” George yells. His voice wavers, his resolve broken. His tears threaten to fall. He turns away, tearing his eyes away from the image of the man he once loved and who once loved him, now struck like a fallen angel, corrupted by the hunger for power, the need for control. “Sam!”

He’s whisked away in comforting arms, shielding him from Dream’s taunting yells. “You’ll be back, George,” he hears. “You always come back.”

In his heart, he knows it’s true. As he steps outside into the garish sunlight, he weeps, sobs racking his body. He never hated Dream, he could never hate Dream. He loves Dream so much it hurt, it ached in his body, the yearning to be by his side, the longing to turn back time to when it was just them, it was just _Dream and George._

He sails away, back to where he came from. Back to a home that sits jarringly empty without Dream’s loud laughter and boundless love. He turns back, taking one last look at the prison, and watches as it fades into the distance, taking Dream with it.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, feel free to let me know how you felt about this piece. all comments and criticism are welcome! 
> 
> agora
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/agowa_)  
> [tumblr](https://meltiers.tumblr.com)


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